COASTLINES
The Poetry of Atlantic Canada
Edited by
Anne Compton
Laurence Hutchman
Ross Leckie
Robin McGrath
GOOSE LANE
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 15
NEW BRUNSWICK 19
Tammy Armstrong
Presque Isle, Maine 21
Boat Builder 21
Mother's Winter Guests 22
Wood Stove Sunday 23
Horse Girls 24
Alfred G. Bailey
The Unreturning 26
The Isosceles Lighthouse 27
La Route Jackman 29
Riviere du Loup 30
Elizabeth Brewster
Where I Come From 31
Return of the Native 31
The Moving Image 33
Fred Cogswell
Valley-Fol^ 34
George Burroughs 34
The Water and the Rocl{ 35
The Beach at Noon 35
Allan Cooper
After Rain 37
The Worker Bee 37
Lynn Davies
In the Beginning 39
Cape Enrage 39
When Ships Sail Too Close 40
When You Can't Leave Me Anymore 41
On the Train 41
Robert Gibbs
All this night long 43
AKindofWakefulness
44
The Death of My Father 45
This Catching of Breath at the Top 46
The Manes P. Aground Off Fort Dufferin 48
Elisabeth Harvor
Four O'Cloc\, New Year's Morning, New River Beach 49
The Damp Hips of the Women 51
M. Travis Lane
Poem Upon the Forcible Entry by Cat into a Poem Originally
Upon Trilliums 54
Codicil 54
For Brigid 55
Portobello 56
Douglas Lochhead
The Cemetery at Loch End, Catalone, Cape Breton 59
Nothing 60
John Thompson 60
Robert Moore
• from The Golden Boof{ ofBovinities 62
Room with a view 63
The Skin You Wore 64
Alden Nowlan
And He Wept Aloud, So That the Egyptians Heard It 65
The Red Wool Shirt 66
Britain Street 67
Daughter ofZion 68
Day's End 69
Sue Sinclair
Saturday Afternoon 71
Red Pepper 71
Orpheus Meets Eurydice in the Underworld 72
The Refrigerator 73
Paddling 74
Lilacs 75
Kay Smith
On Sundays in Summer 77
Again with Music 77
Remembering Miller 78
Old Women and Love 79
John Thompson
Horse 81
Turnip Field 82
The Onion 83
Ghazall 84
Ghazal XXXVII 85
Michael Thorpe
Open-Air Museum 86
Wishful Fall 86
Presence and Process 87
R.M. Vaughan
10 Reasons Why I Fall in Love with Inaccessible Straight
Boys Every Damn Time 88
"insight into private affairs ... raises certain barristers and
magistrates to such great heights" 89
Men Together 90
Simone Signoret, Beldam 91
Liliane Welch
In Cezanne's studio, we're dappled with joy 92
Claude Monet's Water Landscapes 92
December 1972: First Winter Ascension of the Sass Maor 93
Tattoo 93
Dikes on Fundy Bay 94
Alan R. Wilson
Antlia the Air Pump 95
Pegasus the Winged Horse 95
Octans the Octant 96
Lynx 97
NOVA SCOTIA 99
Brian Bartlett
A Basement Tale 101
Always 102
from Talking to the Birds: 2. to a northern gannet 103
The Afterlife of Trees 104
Elizabeth Bishop
At the Fishhouses 105
Cape Breton 107
Poem 109
Charles Bruce
Nova Scotia Fish Hut 111
f
NIEDERS.
JSTAATSU UNIV.-
Early Morning Landing 111
Orchard in the Woods 112
George Elliott Clarke
Blank Sonnet 114
Haligonian Market Cry 114
Blue Elegies: I. v 115
Love Poem I Song Regarding Weymouth Falls 116
Geoffrey Cook
Chopping Wood 118
Watermarks 120
Lome, Nova Scotia 121
Don Domanski
Banns 123
Child of the Earth 124
Drowning Water 126
Sue Goyette
The True Names of Birds 128
The moon on Friday night 128
The Peonies 129
On Building a Nest 130
Rita Joe
Passamaquoddy Song of the Stars 132
You, I, Love, Beauty, Earth 132
Old Stories 133
Plawej ans Lnui'site'w 134
Carole Langille
Prayer 135
Scanning an Afternoon in Winter 135
Through a Slit in the Tent 136
The Sadness of Windows 138
Jeanette Lynes
The Fern Kidnappings 139
The Valley, After Blossoms 140
Muskpxen 141
Brave 141
What We Learned on the Highway Near St. John's 142
Sue MacLeod
when night meets thread & needle & lies down among
the bedclothes 144
especially after rain, the gulls 145
This is the body, consoling itself 146
matt robinson
the body as dictionary, as bible 149
snow; a fear of dying 149
a move to liquid 151
a winter's affection; radiomimetic 152
Peter Sanger
Heron 154
Woodcock Feather 154
Kestrel 155
Escalade 156
Crabapple Blossoms 157
Anne Simpson
Deer on a Beach 158
White, Mauve, Yellow 159
A Name, Many Names 160
The Lilacs 161
Douglas Burnet Smith
Bare Places 163
Skull 164
Walk After Rain 164
Multiple Choice 165
from The Killed 166
Andrew Steeves
Haunting 167
Winter Marsh 1668
Fraser Sutherland
Undergoing 169
On the Beach One Day 170
Auden 's Face 171
Harry Thurston
Father on My Shoulders 172
Revelations 173
River Otters at Play 174
Dragging Bottom 175
Eric Tretheway
The Text of Evening 177
Homesteading 178
Green Cadillac 179
Resurrection at West Lake 180
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 183
Milton Acorn
Charlottetown Harbour 185
The Island 185
I've Tasted My Blood 186
The Squall 187
That Corrugated Look t0 Water 190
The Completion of the Fiddle 191
Lesley-Anne Bourne
Out of the Blizzard 190
The Boy 1 Never Met 190
She Sends Him a Postcard of the Sea 192
Teaching My Husband to Swim 193
David Helwig
Departures 194
from On the Island 195
Cape Breton in Autumn 196
Richard Lemm
My Class Draws a Blank on Robbie Burns 198
Metamorphosis 199
Spark 201
Perfect Circle 201
Hugh MacDonald
The Digging of Deep Wells 203
Shingle Flies 205
John Mackenzie
Me as an Archaeologist 206
Sledgehammer 207
My love is strung with the ancient 208
hearthouse 209
Brent MacLaine
Making the Middle Be 211
North Shore Park 212
from The Story of My Land 214
Thomas O'Grady
Dark Horses 2i6
Cormorants 217
Some Days, Paradise 217
A Prayerfor My Daughters 218
Joseph Sherman
For Mordecai Richler's Shalinsky Who Said 'A Jew Is
an Idea" 220
Aphelion 221
My Father Plaits His Granddaughter's Hair 221
John Smith
The muted 223
You Wanted to Hear 223
Early Morning Was 224
All Light 225
How Could They 225
The unicorn 226
NEWFOUNDLAND 229
Michael Crummey
What's Lost 231
Capelin Scull 232
Painting the Islands 233
Loom 234
Mary Dalton
Burn 236
The Marriage 237
Tom Dawe
Abandoned Outport 239
If Sonnets Were in Fashion 240
Daedalus 241
Riddle 243
Richard Greene
Utopia 245
Crossing the Straits 247
Randall Maggs
Tropical Toads 249
Night Crossing in Ice 250
Signal Hill 251
Carmelita McGrath
Let Us Go and Find a Place of Worship 253
Solar Eclipse, St. John's, Newfoundland 254
Booman 255
How to Leave an Island 256
Al Pittman
Another Night in Crawley's Cove 258
Lupines 259
Gordon Rodgers
Drowned 261
On The Ice 261
White Wedding 262
The Laboratory 263
John Steffler
from The Grey Islands: "They all save one last squirt" 265
Cedar Cove 266
That Night We Were Ravenous 267
Agnes Walsh
Night in the Ashes 2 70
The Time That Passes 271
The Tilts, Point Lance 272
Mike's 273
Patrick Warner
Poem Without Beginning or End 274
The Crocus (after snow) 275
The Heart 276
Enos Watts
Summer Solstice 280
Longliner at Sunset 281
Crocuses and Crown-of Thorns 282
Biographies
283
Bibliography 291
Acknowledgements
Index 307
301